


one time, some time

by springty



Category: Octet - Malloy
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-09
Updated: 2020-06-09
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:55:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24628900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/springty/pseuds/springty
Summary: they were all newcomers, once. lost, desperate messes, sought out by a man who wanted to save everyone.or, snapshots of the first experiences of all the friends of saul with the group.
Relationships: Paula/Saul (Octet)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	one time, some time

It’s her husband’s idea- that’s why the group bears his name. _Friends of Saul._ To help people, he had said, with addictions to the Internet or to technology. Her husband was always concerned with helping everyone else, but privately she wondered if Saul wasn’t the one who needed this type of support the most. She didn’t say so to him.

The first meeting was only the two of them. It was uncomfortable, and largely unproductive. Mostly, Saul just talked her through how he wanted the meetings to be conducted. Singing and sharing and more singing and tea and singing again. The structure, admittedly, was quite nice. She liked to sing, and she recognized that it could be therapeutic. And the tea. Saul said that it wasn’t normal tea, explained its effects to her. She was suspicious. _Really?_ she thought to herself.

“Try it,” Saul urged her. And so slowly she raised the cup to her lips, taking a small sip. The taste was pleasant, at least. Light, a bit tart, but pleasantly so. But as for its, well, added effects… oh. _Oh._ As for its added effects, Paula found herself on the floor, drifting out of consciousness.

She woke five minutes later. She felt… nice. Refreshed. She appreciated the sensation, the calmness of mind that she had been without for too long, even if it only lasted until she and Saul returned home.

For a while after the group was started, no one came. It was just her and Saul; only, Saul didn’t even go half of the time. So Paula spent several of her evenings in a dusty church basement, alone, waiting to welcome at least one lost or suffering soul, but for the first few weeks none came. She had hoped that at least this bizarre project of her husband’s would give them an opportunity to actually _talk_ to one another, to begin to work on mending what was broken between them. She had been wrong. She should have known better. Saul would never do anything to help _himself_ , he would only make everyone else’s problems his responsibility. She watched, silently, as he began to reach out to people online he thought he could save if they came to his little support group, as he ignored the most obvious things in front of him.

She let herself believe, in the beginning, that this project of her husband’s could help him, could help both of them. It only seemed to make matters worse for him. Another thing for Saul to preoccupy himself with and to distance himself from her.

She laid in bed one night, as she did every night, wide awake. The bedroom was silent except for her and Saul’s steady breathing, and dark except for the white light emanating from her husband’s phone screen. This was routine. She was just as guilty of it herself, she knew, but that still didn’t ease her frustration when he did it. Slowly, she reached over and put a hand on his shoulder. “Saul-“ She began. She sighed heavily when he, of course, pulled away from her touch. Why did she even bother?

“I think I found someone,” he said shortly, not even looking up from the screen. Someone, miles away, for him to save. She wanted to argue with him, wanted to say ‘what about me? What about your _wife_ ? I’m right here.’ She wanted nothing more than for him to wake up, and maybe even for the two of them to get some sleep. But she didn’t say anything. Instead, she tried to steal a glimpse over her husband’s shoulder at his illuminated screen. A morbid curiosity, perhaps; she wanted to know if maybe it was something _worth it_ , even though she knew deep down it wasn’t. It seemed to be some online forum, she couldn’t tell exactly what. Her thoughts and her gaze were interrupted when she heard her husband speak again, when she wasn’t expecting him to at all.

“He’s coming to the meeting next week.” Oh, okay. Did this ‘he’ have a name? What was he like? She didn’t ask her husband; she supposed she would find out.

Well, at least next week someone other than Saul would be there. Perhaps it would be less lonely.


End file.
